viernes, 5 de octubre de 2012

Venezuela: a Post-Electoral outlook/Un pronóstico post-electoral

Regardless of who wins the
October 7th presidential election Venezuela faces difficult times.
The country is deeply divided and its two portions of society do no longer see
each other as political adversaries but as enemies. The country walks a thin
line between social unrest and social violence. There is an underlying national
mood of resentment that will slow down all attempts at re-establishing a sense
of common purpose, at least in the short term. This is a legacy of the last 25
years of Venezuelan political history. A first half was characterized by
mediocre democratic political leadership during the second Carlos Andres Perez
and Rafael Caldera’s presidential terms and the second by the revengeful and
furiously populist presidency of Hugo Chavez. While significant social
exclusion of the poor did take place during the first half of this period,
social exclusion of the middle class has been a main trait of the second half.
The result has been a zero sum struggle between highly competitive and hostile
social groups at the expense of the nation.

President Chavez has declared, multiple times,
that a victory of Mr. Capriles would mean civil war. Mr. Capriles has wisely
avoided open confrontation, but he realizes that his electoral victory would
mark the initial point of an intensely bitter and more open struggle between
the two halves of the nation. The reason is tragically simple: half the nation
is captive of the state’s welfare system, highly dependent on government
handouts and subsidies. Much of the population has become accustomed to this
way to do things in Venezuela and believe that such a system can last forever.
They seem convinced that it is possible to have rights but not duties. A Capriles government would have a much
different philosophy of national development. It would have to try to dismantle
this perverse populist system in which benefits and services pretend to be free,
of poor quality and conditioned to political loyalty, what used to be called a
patron-client relationship.

Any attempt by the Capriles
government to change the current model would be considered as a declaration of
war by the followers of Chavez’s Venezuela. Since Chavez has been quite successful
in convincing his half of the country that the welfare state can be a permanent
fixture, they will see any changes it as hostile. Any action on the part of the
Capriles government to bring rationality into the formulation of economic and
social policies will be considered by these groups as a threat to what they
consider their birth rights.

On the other hand, a victory by
Mr. Chavez would mean a continuation of the current state of things. The private
sector would keep declining in importance, alliances of the Chavez government
with ideological friends that receive our money such as Bolivia, Ecuador,
Belarus, Nicaragua and Cuba, would be intensified. The oil industry would
continue to be contaminated by non-core activities that would demand much of
the capital the industry needs for re-investment. The middle class would keep
as the punching ball of the government since still has resources to be
plundered and still prefers to behave democratically while treated
undemocratically.

Under Mr. Chavez the nation would
further travel the road to economic collapse and this would eventually bring
about political collapse. While I consider this process inevitable, I also
regret that the nation will have to pay an enormous price getting there.

These are some of the reasons why
I believe that Venezuela will face difficult times in the next few years, under
any of the foreseeable political scenarios. A major effort at national
reconciliation will not be possible under a Chavez government but it might be
possible under a Capriles government. This young man has shown a great ability
to listen and to connect with the population at large. He has a sympathetic
demeanor and has shown to be persistent and patient.

The main malady of Venezuela is
not economic, although this is a major disaster. It is spiritual. Only a
miracle of political leadership “a la Mandela” can save us from trying to
exterminate each other. I am not certain that Capriles can do it but I am sure
that he has a much better chance to do it than Mr. Chavez. At least he will
give it a good try while Mr. Chavez has no intention of trying.

A variation on these basic
scenarios is an electoral victory of Mr. Chavez followed by his death or by his
inability to hold office. He is an ill man. I am not sure, however, of what is
the worst of his two disabling conditions: his cancer or his mental ailment. I
suspect he is more mentally than physically handicapped. Only the extreme
environment of terror prevailing in official circles has prevented Chavez from
being declared mentally unfit for office. It would take many pages to list all
the signs of his mental afflictions, but only one example will suffice: he
recently addressed the nation, in a compulsory hook –up of all Venezuelan TV
and radio stations (the country has had to suffer hundreds of these), to say
that he considered his electoral victory as “critical for the future of
humanity”. This over-blown belief in his importance has a name in psychiatric
literature. To the common folk it seems to indicate quite clearly that
Venezuela is now dealing with a tropical version of Caligula.